Maximum Linux Security

Chapter 4. Basic Linux System Administration

Network security has become a phenomenon in recent years, and the media can't seem to get enough. Headlines often scream with exciting tales of hacking, cracking, and cyberwar.

This expanded media coverage has lent a special mystique to Internet security and, by translation, system administrators. To hear the media tell it, system administrators spend their days mercilessly tracking renegades across the frozen tundra of cyberspace.

Is there any truth to this? A little. You may someday find yourself driving sleigh dogs over icy steppes, in hot pursuit of the bozos who downed your mail server. But such diversions are uncommon. Instead, you'll spend most days performing less colorful, but still essential, ...